


Pillow Talk

by RC_McLachlan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 09:32:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13656258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: Slowly, Vegeta turns his head on the pillow and squints at her. "Did Nappa send you in?"





	Pillow Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [that video](https://youtu.be/DiviQfLyQX4?t=25s) of the guy coming out of anesthesia and hitting on his wife. 
> 
> Also, DB/Z/Super characters that I will go to the grave believing are elder gods: Mr. Popo, Whis, Launch, and Bubbles. Fight me on this.

Soldering is a finicky business, and her number one rule has always been to finish the job in one go, which is why Bulma doesn't answer her phone when it rings half a dozen times within the span of five minutes. It's only once she gets to a good stopping point that she even bothers to check her missed calls—only to find that all eight of them are from Trunks. This is either going to be really good or really bad.

She connects her phone to the Holo-Vid and calls him back. He picks up on the first ring and immediately launches into an explanation, but she can't hear anything over the way his cute face has been twisted into a rictus of guilt and terror. Whoever put that expression on her boy's face is going to pay with their life.

But then Trunks's babbling starts filtering through her rage, and the more Bulma listens the more she understands what he's trying to say, and it's so out of left field that she makes him start from the beginning.

By the time she stops laughing, Trunks is visibly annoyed. Her kid has never been able to hide his emotions—which he definitely gets from her—and it's so tempting to draw it out and see if he'll lose his temper—it's a toss-up who he gets _that_ from—but she bites back her snickering and asks where he is. The architecture in the background looks vaguely familiar.

"I kind of panicked," Trunks admits. Someone says something off-screen, but Bulma can't place the voice. "I brought him to the Lookout."

"And Dende can't…" She waggles her fingers by her temple. "You know, make with the mojo? Or has his majesty finally broken that stupid brain of his beyond repair?"

Off-screen comes the sound of shouting. Not hard to guess who _that_ is.

Trunks glances out of the frame and makes a face. "Dende isn't here, mama. This is the weekend he goes back to Namek." Oh, that's right. The annual getaway thing he does with Moori. "But Mr. Popo is here and he told me the only way to fix things is to summon the dragon. But, uh, he said you could come here first to point and laugh if you wanted."

Helplessly charmed, Bulma places a hand over her heart. Kami was great and all, and Dende is the sweetest soul to ever grace this planet, but Mr. Popo is really the MVP of their pack of stone-cold weirdos. There is no way she'll ever be able to repay him for this. She'd bring him a thank-you gift, but what would he even want? Her first thought is to hand off an expensive bottle of wine to him so he could share it with Dende, but after he drank half a flute of champagne at Gohan's wedding last month and went off the fucking rails, that's gonna be a no-go. Bulma's still paying out damages to Central City.

"Tell Mr. Popo to sit tight," she says, already reaching for her pack of travel capsules. "And try not to let your father break anything."

"Bring the dragon radar, too."

"You got it. I'll be there in about thirty minutes."

Something shatters in the background. Trunks grimaces. "Can you make it in twenty?"

"Kiddo, I can make it in _ten_."

She makes it in fourteen, but no one's counting.

It's been a few years since she had reason to come to the Lookout, and despite the fact that the evidence of Majin Buu's warpath has long-since been erased by the dragon, the very sight of the white platform sparks a shiver of dread at the base of her neck. If she closes her eyes, she can still feel the roller coaster drop in her belly as she was frozen mid-run, her bones shattering and shifting, with the cloyingly sweet taste of blood and cocoa burning like molten lead on the back of her tongue. She still can't look at a chocolate bar without gagging.

The plane lands so gently that it wouldn't wake a baby, and Bulma hasn't even unhooked her seatbelt before the door opens with a bang and she slams her knee into the steering wheel in surprise.

"Good!" Trunks can barely contain his relief. "You're here. He just threatened to erase Mr. Popo's entire family, starting with his mom. Does Mr. Popo even _have_ a mom?"

No one knows what Mr. Popo is, where he came from, or why he's been biding his time on the Lookout for so long, and Bulma is too afraid to find out. She filed him with the rest of the _Unidentified_ _Cosmic Horrors_ years ago.

"The better question is: has Mr. Popo ripped him in half like a dinner roll yet?"

"No, but that might be because Mr. Popo drugged him." Bulma's really going to have to make good on a thank you gift now. Maybe a handheld gaming console? If Mr. Popo is going to spend however long helping to guard the Earth (or whatever he does up here), he should really have the full experience. Getting him hooked on Mario Kart ought to do it. Or it might be the thing that finally pushes him over the edge. "Got the dragon radar?"

She pulls it out of the glove compartment and hands it over, along with a capsule. "And I've got the three we already had in here."

"Four left to get," Trunks murmurs to himself, so serious for someone so young, every bit the heir to a warrior's throne. Then he looks up and grins, and the grave air falls away. "He thinks I'm someone named Zarbon's kid because of my hair. Who's Zarbon?"

Yeah, _no_. "Well, I think you should probably be on your way. Those balls won't find themselves."

Someday she'll remember that she's dealing with a 10-year old and will choose her phrasing more carefully, but today isn't that day. She can _see_ the joke building on Trunks's tongue, and he vibrates a little in place trying to keep it in, but to his credit he lets it go. Barely. "Yeah, okay. I know he's drugged and I know Mr. Popo's here, but be careful, okay? He tried to blast me when he first saw me."

"I've been dealing with your father's stupidity for way longer than should legally be allowed," Bulma says. "I'll be fine."

When he jumps off the edge of the Lookout, he leaves a vapor trail that glows like a rainbow, and she watches as the clouds swallow his tiny silhouette. Even after all this time, it amazes her to think that such an incredible person came from her. He's the greatest of her inventions.

Of course, it's not just _her_ name on that particular patent. Speaking of whom—

Sighing, she turns toward the little house in the center of the Lookout where Mr. Popo is waiting for her.

"Sorry about all this, Mr. Popo," Bulma says when she reaches the bottom of the steps. "I really appreciate you letting him stay here until Trunks can summon the dragon. He hasn't been too much trouble, has he?"

If Mr. Popo has more than one expression, Bulma's never seen it. He always looks so zen, like he's attained the kind of inner peace that most people can only dream about, or has taken a lot of lithium. She's not about to ask, especially not when he turns that placid smile on her and it's all she can do not to run screaming off the edge of the Lookout.

"No trouble at all," he flat-out lies, smiling mildly. Bulma bites back a whimper. "Please, follow me."

He leads her into the little house, which yawns open into an endless sprawl of staircases that go up, down, side to side, under, over, around, and even upside down. It's like navigating an Escher painting, and every step that she takes feels as though she's going to tip off and fall into the chasms between the staircases. There are no railings for her to cling to, so she tries to grab onto Mr. Popo's vest without coming off like she's doing it at all. He glances back at her only once and it's enough for her to put a little bit of distance between them.

As they go, the sound of muffled groaning and intelligible speech grows louder and louder, and there are a million apologies building on her tongue, all fighting to get out first. This place is so surreal and holy, and there's her husband, trying to shout the void down.

"I've administered a potion that has made Vegeta a little more… pliant than normal," Mr. Popo tells her, and his calm voice reverberates throughout this cavernous place, bouncing off walls that Bulma can't see. "It may have been a bit _too_ strong."

"What was it? I have the worst time finding medicine that his body won't instantly metabolize," Bulma says, impressed.

Mr. Popo doesn't answer, of course, just gestures her toward an open door. "If you need anything, I'll be listening."

She isn't sure if that's supposed to be a pointed reminder or a polite threat, but she knows that the smile she flashes him is more terrified than grateful. "T-Thanks, Mr. Popo. Trunks should be back within the next few hours with the dragon balls, and then we'll be out of your hair. Uh, so to speak."

He just smiles, and for a moment there's a glimpse of something too big to name, swallowed suns and shifting eyes in an endless void, and then he turns to go back up the stairs. Struck dumb, she watches until he's swallowed entirely by the void. His footsteps still echo, though, because her nightmares aren't awful enough.

Blowing out a breath, Bulma turns and regards the doorway, which doesn't seem to be built into a wall. It's just… there. This place is so weird and Vegeta's going to sleep in the gravity simulator for a _month_ for making her come here.

Speaking of whom, from inside the room Vegeta garbles something that no one in the universe could possibly translate, which isn't different from the nonsense he shouts whenever he burns popcorn. Bulma rolls her eyes, steels her shoulders, and walks in.

Over the years, she's found Vegeta in a lot of beds—the one they share, of course, but also the one in Capsule Corp's medbay, the cot in the simulator, sprawling California kings in various hotels, a scrap of a thing in a Voxxian prison during that weird trip to Colfrat-B last summer, and the daybed in his old room that he keeps pretty much only to store all his spandex—and he always seems to take up so much room in them, because mere sheets can't contain a saiyan.

The one that Mr. Popo stashed him in is laughably huge. He looks like the world's biggest four-year old, all sleepy-eyed and mulish, with the worst case of bedhead possibly ever. And considering the ridiculous pine tree he calls hair, that's saying something. 

There's a glint on his chin and it takes Bulma a second to realize it's drool, and she snaps a picture with her phone before she can think about it. At the shutter click and flash, Vegeta jerks in surprise, but it's with none of his usual fluid grace. He grumbles and moves his limbs sluggishly beneath the blankets like a bear that's been hit with a tranq dart.

"I will destroy this entire sector," he mumbles thickly, "if I'm not put into a healing tank at once."

Yeah, no sympathy. She crosses her arms. "What makes you think you even deserve a healing tank? You've done some dumbass things in your life, mister, but this one takes the cake. Is it a saiyan thing? Is it in your DNA to crave brain damage?"

Slowly, Vegeta turns his head on the pillow and squints at her. "Did Nappa send you in?"

"Haven't seen Nappa," she says truthfully, and he blinks at her. Softening, Bulma crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. It feels like a cloud under her ass. There are a handful of empty capsules in the plane, and If Mr. Popo isn't looking she could probably pop the mattress into one. She _needs_ this bed in her life.

"What happened?" Vegeta slurs, blinking rapidly to keep his eyes open. His hands lift from the sheets to hover in front of his face. He stares at them like he can't remember what they're used for. "I don't… I feel strange. My head is full of fluff."

"I don't know how you managed to knock your dome into Korin's Tower _juuuust_ hard enough to give yourself amnesia, but congratulations: you did it! That thing is pure magic, you dink, and Korin hates you," she says. "You were always gonna lose that fight."

He drops his hands and turns to look at her again. The little furrow in the space between his eyebrows smooths out, transforming the muddled anger there into something resembling confusion with a touch of amazement. He looks as surprised as he did in his first year on Earth when, in the middle of an argument about simulator repairs, he propositioned her in the nastiest of ways and she called his bluff (after which he turned tail and fled).

"I have never seen you before. Are you a recent addition to the Frieza Force?"

Bulma pauses only for a second, then cracks a grin. Between the head wound and the drugs, he thinks they're literally decades back in time. "I am not and nor have I ever been a member of the Frieza Force."

"For the best," he agrees slowly, nodding as though imparting some nugget of wisdom, but it's probably because he feels like his head is about to float away. "Your beauty would send the troops into a frenzy. One smile and the entire empire would switch its allegiance to you."

 _Holy_. _Shit._

Her hands fly to her cheeks to keep them from bursting into flame, while her poor heart works overtime, exposed and fluttering the way it did when she was younger and anyone paid her a little bit of genuine attention. "Vegeta—"

"Ah, so you know who I am," he says, all bleary pleasure and pomp. "Good. I am an important person to know, you know." He blinks once, twice, then says, "Know. _Know_. What a strange word. You know me, but I don't know you. I demand you tell me your name."

If she grins any wider, her face will split. "Bulma."

"A good, solid name." Who even _is_ this guy? What a little smooth-talker. "What do you do here, Bulma? Are you a fighter? I… I think I lost my scouter, else I would take your reading. I work directly for Frieza, you know, so I have the authority to assign you to whichever legion you wish to join. Our paths should cross more frequently."

This is every single Christmas and birthday rolled into one. Shenron couldn't give her a wish this good. "I'm a… mechanic, actually. Robotics expert, weapons developer. Inventor."

"A wearer of many hats. You must be very intelligent."

She grins. "I had a boyfriend once who thought I was smart as I could be for a woman."

"What does your gender have anything to do with it?" Vegeta sounds truly baffled, then he brightens. "I'll kill him for you."

This is such a change from the murderous dickbag she first met on Namek—it's probably the drugs, lowering his guard and loosening his tongue, revealing the awkward dork beneath the barbed veneer of smarm. She kind of wants to linger here and get to know this part of her husband. Vegeta has never been forthcoming about his time with Frieza, but she knows that he mostly kept to his little circle of him and Nappa, and eschewed any sort of fraternizing. There certainly weren't any sexual escapades, which makes this all the more sweet for how hard he's trying to impress her. But Trunks won't be gone forever and she doesn't want him, or anyone else, to see this side of Vegeta. He's worked so hard to cultivate such an on-guard persona; he'd hate her if it got out that he's actually a huge sap. Sadly, she has to bring this to a close.

"No need. He and I were finished years ago."

"Then you are not attached."

"Actually, I am," Bulma says, scooting closer. "To you. I'm your wife."

He chokes on a gasp, recoiling as though she sucker-punched him, and stares at her with wide, shocked eyes. He whispers, high-pitched with awe, "You're _my_ wife?"

"Yep."

The drugs must be starting to wear off, because when he lifts his hands to grab his hair the motion is much smoother than before. He grabs fistfuls of it and yanks. "It can't be possible." He looks over his arm at her. "Are you _really?_ Is Radditz playing a joke on me? Because I've been looking for an excuse to rip out his spleen."

She's going to blow out a lung trying to hold her laughter in. "Swear on my life."

"The gods of my forefathers haven't abandoned me." Apparently neither has his flair for the dramatic. His eyes close in sheer bliss. "I hit the jackpot."

Bursting into laughter, Bulma leans down and brushes her lips over the swell of his cheek. "And don't you forget it."

His face glows bright red and he refuses to meet her eyes. "I—Have we… _lain_ together?"

Sometimes when she's waiting for data to finish compiling, she watches the old videos she pulled from Radditz's ship, taking special note of Nappa's raucous laughter and Radditz's dirty mouth. By all rights, Vegeta should have been as rough and filthy as his two cohorts, but perhaps it's his upbringing under Frieza that made him so prudish. He has no problem decimating entire solar systems, but call him cute once and risk being labeled "vulgar" forever. He still won't use the word "fuck" in a sexual connotation.

"Oh yeah." She winks at him. "Twice this morning, in fact."

A muscle jumps in his cheek and he keep his hazy gaze pointedly over her shoulder. "Do we… have children?"

This is probably really mean of her to do, especially considering that his normal reality is only a wish away and the shine of everything she's telling him will come off, but she wants this poor facsimile to have something good—even if only for a little while. "We do. A son." Conspiratorially, she leans down and whispers, "He ascended to super saiyan and destroyed Frieza."

Vegeta's jaw positively _drops_. "You lie."

"Nah, I wouldn't lie about something like that." To prove the point, she picks his hand up in her own and places it over her heart, which beats steady and true. "I swear."

He blinks rapidly, but this time it has nothing to do with trying to stay awake. His throat works as he swallows. "My bloodline has fulfilled the prophecy. I… never thought… The saiyan race has been avenged."

"And _how_ ," she says cheerfully. "Yeah, your son chopped Frieza up into little pieces and blasted him into dust. Then he killed King Kold."

"He _what?!_ The whole of the Kold Empire is…?" Vegeta stares up at the ceiling, stunned. "Then… we're free. I'm free."

Bulma takes his hand away from her chest and links their fingers together. "As a bird."

Huffing a disbelieving laugh, he turns a watery grin on her, completely devoid of his usual asshattery, and squeezes her hand. Except he doesn't know her or her limits, so he drops it like it burns him when she yelps at the pressure.

"Ow, fuck!"

Vegeta looks devastated. "I—I didn't—"

"No, no, it's fine. You're usually very conscientious of the fact that I can't bench press a truck like the rest of you idiots." On the way home they'll stop by Korin's to pick up a senzu. And apologize for any and all damage to the tower.

"This seems like a good time to interrupt," comes a voice, and Bulma turns to see Trunks leaning in the doorway, pocketing his phone. He catches her eye and winks, and holy shit, he filmed this. That kid is getting a _windfall_ of toys come Christmas.

"I've got the dragon balls, so we can make him go back to normal. Or keep him this way. He's way nicer. He'd probably take me to the park without forcing me to punch him in the face first."

A low growl cuts through the quiet atmosphere of the room, and Bulma flicks Vegeta on the forehead. "Cut that out. He's our son."

Vegeta balks. "That's Zarbon's mutant brat."

"Hey!" Trunks bristles like a wet cat. "I'm not a mutant."

"You mean to tell me that puny whelp brought the Kold Empire to its knees?" Ah, there's the asshole that Bulma met on Namek. Nice to see that his absence was only temporary.

"No, not him," Bulma says, patting Vegeta's hand consolingly. "Well, he _could_ , but he didn't. Our son from the future was the one who took care of Frieza."

Trunks clears his throat. "Can we call the dragon?"

"What's a dragon?" Vegeta demands.

Every so often, when people are being particularly stupid on political pundit shows, she thinks about sitting some up-and-coming reporter down and giving them the full scoop on the Z-Warriors and how many times Earth has come close to being destroyed (or actually was)—just laying it all out for the world to hear. The only thing that's stopped her is that there are so many little subplots to their collective story that, if anything were to be said out of context, nothing would make sense. She can just imagine the insulted incredulity on that reporter's face if Bulma left out Kami's role in Piccolo's power-up during the Cell fiasco—mostly because it's the exact same expression that Vegeta's wearing now.

"You're not my wife. You're _insane!_ Remove yourself from my room, y-you _harlot_ , and send in Nappa before I blow this place sky-high!"

Bulma ignores him and positively beams at Trunks. "Let's get this show on the road."

Later, once Shenron has broken itself down into the dragon balls and exploded outward for points unknown, Trunks grabs onto Vegeta's hand, tugs it a couple of times, and says, "It's been a weird day. Bet you're ready to go home, huh?"

Vegeta took the news of his amnesia as well as Bulma could have hoped—he denied having said _anything_ out of the ordinary, swore up and down that he did _not_ suffer from amnesia in the first place, and refused to apologize to Korin for whatever damage the Tower incurred from Vegeta's noggin. But he didn't blow up the Lookout and hasn't flown off to sulk in the mountains for a few weeks, so Bulma's counting it as a win.

"I don't know about either of you," Bulma says, "but I am so ready for a nap." On the mattress she _definitely_ stole. Hopefully it'll be a couple of days before Mr. Popo notices that the Lookout is down a bed.

She glances over to where he's standing. He's got the same, mild look on his face that he always does. Yeah, he totally knows.

"Oooh, I could sleep!" Trunks cheers. He lets go of Vegeta's hand and makes for the plane, but is suddenly jerked backwards by a gloved vice around his wrist. Startled, he looks up. "P-Papa?"

"Give me your phone." It's not a request.

Trunks gasps. "Aw, papa, c'mon—"

Without waiting to hear the rest of Trunks's pleas, Vegeta reaches right into Trunks's jacket pocket and takes out the sleek, one of a kind CC-918 model that Bulma gave Trunks for his birthday. It'll be another year and a half before the phone hits the shelves, but his has the exclusive feature of having the juice to call other planets. That, and a petabyte of storage.

It took her about a month to build. It takes Vegeta less than a second to crush it to dust.

"Goddammit, Vegeta!"

"Papa, noooo!"

Daintily, Vegeta brushes the dust and plastic shards from his glove and then hits Trunks with a glare so sharp that Bulma actually checks her boy to make sure there's no physical damage.

"What do they call it on those ridiculous cop shows you two watch? 'Spoliation of evidence'? I was an amnesiac, not an idiot, boy. Next time, be less obvious about it." With that, he launches into the sky with a vapor trail that somehow _feels_ snarky, and disappears.

After a moment of watching the vapor trail disperse, Trunks snuggles against her side. It's second nature to cup the side of his head and take the weight. "Do you think he knows that the video still lives on the Cloud and is already on all of Capsule Corp's servers?"

"Well, _I'm_ not gonna tell him."


End file.
